Saturday 24 August 2013

Flora's War by Pamela Rushby


Flora’s War by Pamela Rushby

 

Publisher: Ford Street

Publication Date:  August 2013

ISBN: 9781921665981

Pages: 306 (est)

 Format: B format paperback           

Price: AUD $18.95

Category: Fiction

Age Guide: 11+

 

Blurb:

It’s 1915 and sixteen-year-old Australian, Flora Wentworth, is visiting Cairo with her archaeologist father. She watches with growing alarm as first a trickle and then a flood of wounded soldiers are shipped into the city from Gallipoli.

 

Flora’s comfortable life is turned upside down when a hospital visit thrusts her into the realities of World War 1. She is soon transporting injured soldiers and helping out exhausted nurses – managing to fall in love along the way.

 

As Flora battles to save lives and find her own, a tragic misunderstanding changes everything...

 

Review:

I absolutely loved Flora’s War!!

 

Flora’s War for me is filled with so much detail and history.  Pamela has written a book full of great power. For me reading about how civilian’s helped out in World War 1 was inspiring and I never imagined how much young women actually did during the war.

 

It’s a book aimed at young girls and to teach about how civilians, especially women, helped during the First War.


I highly recommend every grade 10 student should read Flora’s War as it really shows the War in a new way. I believe I would have gained more reading this in grade 10 or even grade 6 when we learnt about World War 1 because there was so much depth in the story.

It shows how before the ANZAC’s first went to battle that there wasn’t much for the nurses to do but then once they did enter into the battle so many young men came back injured, diseased or died from their injuries or the diseases they caught.

 

Pamela you have really made me see the War in a new way and how women young and old did a lot more during the war than I ever first thought.

 

Thank you for such a beautifully written story. I hope one day to share it with my children as to me it’s more than just a story, it tells of something that happened almost 100 years ago.

 

Such a fitting tribute for all the young women such as Flora who did so much during World War 1 in Cairo.

5/5

 

About the Author

Pamela Rushby:

Pamela Rushby lives in Brisbane with her husband, son and six visiting scrub turkeys.

Pam has worked in advertising; as a pre-school teacher; and as a writer and producer of educational television, audio and multinmedia.

She has won several awards, including a Literature Board if the Australia Council grant to work on archaeological excavations in Egypt and Joprdan; a Churchill Fellowship to strudy educational television in Canada; the Ethek Turner Prize in the NSW Premier’s Literacy Awards; and a bag of gold coins at a film festival in Iran.

Her website is www.pamelarushby.com

 

Also by Pamela Rushby:

·         The Horsrs Disn’t Come Home HarperCollins 2012 (short-listed, Queensland Literacy Awards 2012)

·         When the Hipchicks Went to War Hachette 2009 (Notable Book CBCA 2010, winner Ethel Turner Award for young people’s literature, NSW Premier’s Literacy Awards 2010)

·         Millions of Mummies John Wiley & Sons 2006

·         Circles of Stone HarperCollins 2003

Saturday 3 August 2013

Gamers' Rebellion by George Ivanoff


Gamers’ Rebellion by Greg Ivanoff

 

Publisher: Ford Street
Publication Date: June 2013

Pages: 246

 Format: Paperback

Price: AUD $16.95

Age Guide: 11+

 

Blurb:

 

Tark and Zyra finally make it out into the real world... but things are not quite what they expected. When Zyra is captured by the Designers, Tark finds himself among a group of teenage rebels. It seems like everyone has an agenda and Tark and Zyra are to be pawns in other people’s power games. They soon discover the sinister uses to which the game is being put and the shocking way it is all operated – with dozens of kidnapped children wired directly into the mainframe, their brains keeping the whole thing going. Will Tark and Zyra be able to free these children? Will they be able to save the characters within the game from the people who created them? Will they even be able to remain in the real world? Or will the Designers’ plans for world domination win out?

 

Review:

Gamers’ Rebellion is the finale chapter in the  Gamers trilogy.

 

I absolutely enjoyed reading Gamers’ Rebellion by George Ivanoff. It had me hooked from the very beginning.

 

I may not have read Gamers; Quest and Gamers’ Challenge but after finishing Gamers’ Rebellion I defiantly intend on getting a copy of both books and reading. I found Gamers’ Rebellion full of excitement.

 

At times I did get confused about Tark and Zyra as I never fully understood the characters as without reading Gamers’ Quest and Gamers’ Challenge I found i had missed the most important thing of the story of how things began and where they actually came from. I eventually worked out that both Tark and Zyra are not from the real world but that of the world created by the Designers.

 

This book is aimed at young people 11+ and I truely believe all kids who are into the world of gaming would enjoy reading the Gamers’ Trilogy. It really brings the world of gaming into a whole new light.

 

I really loved the way George has written Gamers’ Rebellion. For me it’s a great was to get kids out of the gaming world and into the world of fiction through books.

 

Well done George Ivanoff for writing such a great book!!

 

5/5

 

About the author:

 

Greg Ivanoff

 

Greg Ivanoff is an author and stay-at-home dad residing in Melbourne. He has written over 30 books for children and teenagers, two of which are on the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge booklist. George has also written for numerous magazines and anthologies, including Trust Me! and Dr Who, Short Trips:Defining Patterns. Check out George’s website at http://www.georgeivanoff.com.au/

 

Also by George Ivanoff:

  • Gamers’ Quest
  • Gamers’ Challenge
  • Life, Death and Detention
  • Generation Slip
  • Cory Jansen: Teen Spy
  • House of Cards